The high winds and general wintry conditions have deterred many coarse anglers over the past week, but those braving the elements at Basildon's Gloucester Park continue to find fish.

Sunday's open match started cold and frosty, with even the eventual winner getting off to a slow start.

At the scales it was matchman Dave Hemmings who took a convincing win with an 11lb 5oz pole-caught roach haul.

Dave fished red maggot near the incoming sluice with most of his fish coming in the latter part of the match.

Second place went to Dave Smee with a 5lb 10oz roach catch.

Del fished chopped worm on the pole from the cockle bank. Wayne Candy used the same bait and tactics from the small bay for 4lb 5oz and third place.

Bernie Robinson used waggler tactics and red maggot for a 4lb 2oz roach catch.

The cold weather did not deter the pike at Sunday's Northlands park match, where all the competitors headed for the caf lake.

Basildon angler Kevin Watts ledgered mackerel to take a relatively early lead with a 14lb 12oz personal best pike.

He maintained his lead, but faced a challenge at the tail end of the match when Barry Kipling landed a similar sized specimen. However at the scales Barry's fish, which fell to a spinner, weighed in ounces behind at 14lb. Barry also took a pike of 6lb.

Brian Peck took third place with a pike of 5lb 3oz, and he also landed pike of 4lb 10oz and 2lb.

The run up to the festive season offers match anglers a choice of events for the next two Sundays.

There will be pike matches at Northlands Park on December 12 and December 19.

The match on the 12th will be for the usual tackle prizes, while the later event will be the tremendously-popular Christmas Fayre match, offering Christmas hampers as well as tackle prizes.

For both matches anglers should meet at the Northlands Park Caf from 7.30am for an 8am walk off. Fishing time will be 8.45am till 3.15pm. Entry will cost £5 with the usual day ticket payable on the bank.

There will be also be open matches at Gloucester Park the same two days.

The first match will be the usual pools money event, whilst the match on the 19th will be the Christmas Fayre Open, offering Christmas hampers as well as the cash payouts.

Anglers should meet at the Western end of the island at 7.15am for a 7.30am sharp walkoff.

Anglers will need two keepnets, one for silver fish, and the other for carp and tench. Bloodworm and joker are both barred.

For more information on either match ring Mick Toomer on 01268 282317.

(Left) Basildon matchman Dave Hemmings displays his Open winning roach haul

(Right) Kevin Watts shows his personal best 14lb 12oz that earned him the spoils at the Northlands Park pike match

Hockley's coolest customer

A six-hour match staged by HRH Angling team at Hockley Angling Club's day ticket water fished well despite the heavy overnight frosts at the weekend.

Peter Lester wasted little time in getting to grips with the conditions to take a winning total of 48lb 8oz.

Peter's tactics were red maggot presented on the pole tight to the bottom.

Second spot went to Mervyn Woodly who, using similar tactics as Peter, claimed 27lb 4oz of fish.

Geoff Long was third with 26lb and Tony Jenkins took fourth with his 21lb 2oz haul.

All of the competing 15 anglers took good bags of fish with a total of 186lb 8oz of fish being brought to bank.

So smooth for John Smith

Anglers have been a getting far from a cool reception at Rochford's Doggetts fishery, despite the bitter overnight temperatures of late.

Pike have been providing a fair slice of the action, with John Smith taking the pick of the predators with a 16lb fish.

Hockley angler John took his big fish from the east bank, using ledgered trout as his tempter.

Roach and bream are still making themselves known at the long arm along with some sizable carp.

Bob Davis, of Leigh, landed the week's biggest carp - a 14lb common from the north bank.

Beast bites at Pipps Hill

There's a beast waiting to be had at Pipps Hill - that's the message from fishery manager Dave Levy after he witnessed the mauling of a 6lb pike at the Cranes Farm Road lake.

The pike was putting up a small struggle when a much larger fish broke from the reeds and took almost the whole catch in its mouth.

The massive predator shook its prey for about ten seconds before releasing it, leaving Dave to inspect the damaged, smaller pike.

He said: "The smaller fish would have been killed instantly, the jaw marks alone measured nearly ten inches across.

"I would say this was a pike far in excess of 30lb.

"We are all very excited here at Pipps Hill and have organised a session this weekend to try and bring this beast to bank." Watch this space . . .

Sea shorts

The SAAS club are holding an open beach match on Sunday, December 12 at Westcliff. Fishing times will from 12-30 to 5-30pm. Please note that crab baits are banned.

The early draw will take place on Thursday night at the TEAC club from 8pm and on the day at the Glasshouse at Wescliff from 10am onwards.

For more details please phone 01245 322641.

The SAAS held a club match from the Bradwell shore on Saturday night.

The winner was Rollo Rollings with 6lb 2 1/2oz, including three codling and three whiting, who beat Dave Tanner into second place with 1lb 4oz and third Bob Gosling with 7oz.

Top Junior was Lewis Clark with 6oz. They also had lots of undersize whiting.

Local angler Ian Smith fished the Clacton open on Sunday in too perfect conditions.

Fish were hard to come by, but Ian managed a double shot of codling for 2lb 14oz which enabled him to win his section, while another local angler, Craig Gore, managed second in his section.

Conditions round-up

Elusive codling fail to make their mark

Not through lack of looking, Southend anglers are still finding codling hard to locate.

All the codling seem to be in an area off Clacton and not in the normal marks for the time of the year.

Also, the first reports have been received of one or two of the codling coughing up sprats.

Southend Boats

Still plenty of small whiting and dabs about to make up for the lack of codling. Boats are only getting up to eight decent fish per day.

Southend Pier

The odd codling coming from the end of the pier at night, with a few whiting and flounders in the day.

Southend Beaches

The plentiful numbers of whiting should be slowing down now with odd codling to be caught.

The very poor flounder fishing we have had should change soon as numbers increase.

River Crouch

The numbers of whiting have slowed down now from the shore.

Boat anglers are also having slow sport with the codling not showing in the recognised marks.

River Blackwater

Still plenty of codling from the Clacton area with boats getting up to 60 fish per day.

The best catch fell to Andy Smith with a fish of 14 3/4lb on squid on Terry Batt's boat Vicky Emma.

There are a lot more fish in the 4-6lb range. In the river boats are getting up to 15 codling a day, plus whiting and dabs and even a 5 1/2lb roker.

West Mersea

Plenty of codling from the Clacton area for the boats.

Canvey, Tilbury and Gravesend

Several codling being caught with whiting mixed in.

Sea round-up

Contact Bait and Tackle's Ray Power on 01702 617764

Converted for the new archive on 19 November 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.